The Dark pt.2
Editing not finished, sorry for any typos. feel free to point any out for me to fix- It looked like a person. A person with an unnaturally slender waist, and arms that would drag along the floor if fully extended. It started moving down the hallway toward him, legs not moving, making a quiet whirring noise. Now it was closer, and more details could be made out. The skin was fractured, maroon lines crisscrossed the surface. In fact, it looked like the creature had simply covered it's self with human flesh. The face was slack and unmoving, no teeth were visible. It's hands were silver and sharp at the fingertips. At places the silver bone was visible beneath the flesh. ''Wait, why are it's bones silver? ''He didn't have time to finish that thought because the Ripper stopped, bent it's legs, and lunged forward. Silver claws cut his left arm and sliced four long gashes. "AHHHHH!" Dvergr Man screamed and started to run away up the stairs as fast as he could. He could hear the Ripper behind him ''clank, scratch, whirr. ''A monotonic voice sounded behind him,"Why are you running? It's only a joke." More metal claws sliced through his lower back. He screamed again and ran faster, now out of the stairwell and into another hallway. Seri then reported "Comms array in 150 feet." But he was stopped in his tracks by a cold, iron grip, and then he turned around, jammed his rifle down it's throat, and fired on full auto. The thing shrieked and ran away into the darkness. "That's right, run. Run you scared little son of a bitch!" Dvergr man's suit was starting to repair his cuts on his arm and lower back. "Weird, usually cuts like that heal much faster..." Seri responded,"The creatures claws must have had anticoagulant fluid on them" "What the hell is that?" "It means you don't stop bleeding for a very long time. Luckily, the life support on your suit can filter out the stuff pretty easily, just make sure the Ripper doesn't hit the life support unit" "Ok, well it looks like the Ripper is gone for now." "Don't be so sure, there is still movement further away, and that thing moves so fast I'd give it 5 seconds before it's back to slashing you to pieces." "I'll run to the comms array then" Dvergr Man ran through the door with the label COMMS ARRAY. Inside there was a large computer terminal and three monitors above it. A little backlit sign declared the array as "dormant." Glass panels were on the wall opposite the door, just darkness on the other side. There was also a big, red button. "Don't even think about it" Seri cut in before Dvergr Man could even walk over to it. "Well, what button do I press? It's not like there's a button that says 'Turn on array' anywhere" "Yeah, there is. it's literally right in front of your face you moron!" "Now where did you learn that word?" He then pressed the "turn on array" button and floodlights lit up the room beyond the glass panels. It was a large, circular room with a 40-foot pillar in the center. ''That must be the antenna. ''The pillar's upper half swung down until it formed a dish, and a smaller spike remained in the center. Doors on the ceiling slid open and the antenna proceeded to raise toward the roof. Now the little backlit sign read "Deploying" And on the central monitor there were the words "Record message. Send to " "Now this I can figure out" Dvergr Man muttered. He set the frequency to "all" and started recording the message. "Someone, help me. I am stranded on The Dark with nothing but my rifle and whatever is in this old outpost. My coordinates are 42N 8E. Like I mentioned before, I managed to find an abandoned United States outpost to hide in-" The Ripper started clawing and bashing at the door, which Dvergr Man had locked. "-But there is a creature in here with me that's hell bent on ripping me to shreds" "Any ideas Seri?" Dvergr man said, picking up his rifle and aiming it at the door" "No, that door should hold" It didn't, the door flew open and the Ripper stood, chuckling to itself. "Why can't you take a joke? this is so funny!" This time, Dvergr Man didn't hesitate. He fired some more at the Ripper and then jumped through the glass into the the room with the array. He landed. Hard. But not hard enough to injure anything. He scrambled to the array, still raising upward, and found a ladder. Climbing 3 rungs at a time, with the Ripper a few yards behind him, he saw an opening in the dish. But then the doors in the roof started sliding closed again to seal the antenna. "Climb faster!" Seri yelled in his ear. And Dvergr Man made it through the doors. When he looked down, he could see the Ripper climbing up, but just it's upper half made it through, the doors shut and cut the creature in half. It hung there, sparks flashing at the place where it was cut. ''It was a machine! ''It twitched, and then pulled itself up and grabbed hold of a rung with the other arm. Climbing toward him. Dvergr Man climbed through the opening in the dish and stood on the top, moving as far away from that small square as possible, and pointing his gun at it. Metal claws gripped the edge of the entrance, and the Ripper was on the dish with Dvergr Man. It swung one of It's long arms in an arc toward him, but he jumped back. Then he had an idea "Seri! Since the Ripper is a robot, that means it runs on an AI like you right?" "Yes, but that doesn't change anything now does it?" "Yeah, it really does, if I send you in there you can shut this thing down from the inside!" She didn't respond, but the Ripper stopped in it's tracks. It's arm raised up, and impaled it's self in the head. Then it fell to the ground. "There, It's dead. I don't know how I feel about directly ending something's life like that. But it was Ripper, or us." Seri had come back. "Seri, I thought you didn't have feelings. How extensive was that upgrade?" She didn't respond. But a loud boom sounded in the sky and a fiery hull could be made out coming down from the clouds. A ship had heard there signal, and was coming down to rescue them. It slowed down when the flames died away and landed a few hundred feet from the base. A hatch opened, and Dr. Deimos stood in the doorway.